Ivory Hill had spent the majority of her adult life running. Throughout her twenties and the first part of her thirties it was from bombs and bullets. Now, at thirty six years old Ivory was running from something that she could never truly escape fr...
Ivory awoke with a start, her heart pounding so hard that she was surprised the noise hadn't awoken Trudy and Norm. She ran a hand through her hair, her mouth dry. The woman licked her lips, sitting up properly. Ivory didn't realise that she'd been crying in her sleep until she tasted salt. She checked the time, squinting through the gloom at her watch. It was just before half five. Nausea was gnawing at her insides. She swung her legs out of bed, picked up Tigger and crept out of the room, doing her best not to wake Trudy and Norm who were still asleep, pressed against each other with smiles on their faces.
Ivory straggled into the makeshift kitchen, yawning. She somehow looked even more dishevelled than usual, her black hair sticking up like a chimney brush. Grace was already up and dressed, tipping something into Tigger's food bowl. "What are you doing?" Ivory asked.
Grace jumped, the can in her hand clattering to the floor. "Nothing."
The dark haired woman bent down, picking up what Grace had dropped. The label told her that it was a can of the luxury ration fish. "I knew you loved him." Ivory put Tigger down and watched him rub himself against Grace's legs before he buried his face into his food bowl, purring noisily.
"Are you alright?" The redhead asked, eyeing Ivory suspiciously. The thick scar on the dark haired woman's face looked red and raw in the early morning light.
"Yeah." Ivory reached up and rubbed at her cheeks, silently hoping that there weren't any tear stains on them. She turned and went into the lab, beginning to root through her files.
Grace followed her and gave her a long, searching look. "Why are you up so early?"
"I wanted to get some work done."
"Well... have some breakfast first."
Ivory's stomach still felt unsettled. "I'm not hungry."
"Come on, you can't work on an empty stomach. Now what do you want? I'll make you something to eat."
"Grace I said I'm not hungry."
Grace looked around the room for a second then snatched Ivory's data pad off of the desk. "Come on. Pancakes or eggs? I got us the good rations."
"Grace give me that back."
The older woman held the data pad high above her head. "Pancakes or eggs?"
"Pancakes. Now give me my data pad."
"After you've eaten breakfast."
"I hate you." Ivory grumbled.
"Fine but you're still going to have pancakes before you get your data pad back." Tigger jumped onto the countertop then launched himself onto Grace's shoulders, draping himself around her neck. "Get off me you furry little shit." Despite her words the redhead made no effort to get the cat off of herself.
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Ivory and Trudy sat together in the link room, taking it in turns to swig beer straight from the bottle.
"It's a good thing Grace ain't here to see this." Trudy wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, passing the beer back to Ivory.
Grace, Jake and Norm were all in the link units, their minds miles away in the Pandoran rain forest as they drove their Avatars. "I'm so sick of being stuck in here with nothing to do that I almost wish she was here to see this, at least Grace complaining for twenty minutes straight would break the monotony."
Trudy shrugged. "I get to fly Maya, that's all I care about."
"And you get to share a bed with Norm." Ivory added.
"Well yeah, there's that too." Trudy grinned, tightening her long ponytail. Trudy never seemed to feel ashamed about anything. She owned everything she did no matter what it was and Ivory respected that although she wished Norm wasn't on that list so frequently. Grace had said that Trudy and Norm were in the "honeymoon period" of their relationship and things would die soon but to Ivory's knowledge things between them had begun a month after Norm had gotten to Hell's Gate so the honeymoon period should have been long gone.
Ivory forced herself up off of the floor, picking up what was left of the beer. "We should put this away before Jake links back here and finishes it."
